Over at the blog of the Association for Mormon Letters, Dan Wells has an insightful post about religion in science fiction. One of his key points:
What Ellie Arroway [the main character in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact] really wants, when you strip away the trappings of science and technology and alien encounters, is the same thing we all want: a connection to the infinite. A knowledge that we are not alone. A reassurance that no matter how big the universe may be, we still matter.